Daily Archives: February 19, 2010

Bombspotters entering the military base of Kleine Brogel in 2001 for a war crimes inspection. Bombspotting campaigns against nuclear weapons, which are as illegal for NATO as for ‘rogue states’ like Saddam’s Iraq.

“We appeal to our government to take active steps in Nato to secure the quick removal of these nuclear arms,” said ex-foreign minister Willy Claes, who served as Nato secretary-general in the 1990s, ex-premiers Jean-Luc Dehaene and Guy Verhofstadt and former foreign minister Louis Michel.

Nato’s nuclear arms no longer serve a military purpose and encourage other nations to acquire atomic weapons, the four insisted.

Getting rid of nuclear arms would send “an extremely positive signal” to non-nuclear nations prior to a scheduled May review conference of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, they said.

The four said the time seemed right, pointing to positive signals from the Obama administration.

Washington maintains nuclear bombs at air bases in several European nations including Belgium.

Willy Claes belongs to the right wing of the Belgian social democrats (NATO would not have accepted him as its secretary-general if he would have belonged to the party’s left wing).

Guy Verhofstadt and Louis Michel are members of the pro-capitalist “Liberal” parties in Belgium (“Liberal” not in the United States sense, but in the West European sense of pro-capitalist. Verhofstadt even used to admire Margaret Thatcher).

Jean-Luc Dehaene is a member of the rather conservative Christian Democrats.

So, neither of these four politicians is a far Leftist (or any sort of Leftist).

Unfortunately, it would have been better if these four politicians would have pushed these anti nuclear weapons policies while they were still in office. It reminds me of other politicians who start showing sanity after leaving office (Colin Powell, Jimmy Carter, Dutch ex-Prime Minister Dries van Agt, etc.)

Nevertheless, it is to be hoped that politicians, presently in office, will listen to the words of these four (ex-) colleagues; and will put them into practice.

US President Barack Obama has renounced the development of any new nuclear weapons tearing up former president George W Bush’s threat to launch a nuclear attack against countries that used chemical or biological weapons against the US: here.

Ireland’s Defence Minister Willie O’Dea has resigned after falsely accusing Sinn Fein politician Maurice Quinlivan of running a brothel and then denying in court that he had made the slanderous comment: here.

“The resignation of Deputy Willie O’Dea as Minister for Defence is entirely appropriate. But like the Minister’s apology in the High Court on 21st December it had to be dragged kicking and screaming from the Fianna Fáil/Green Government.

“Minister O’Dea had become totally unsuitable for Ministerial office given his gross defamation of an election candidate, his false denial of that defamation in a spurious affidavit to the High Court and his unapologetic performance in the Dáil on Wednesday.

“Fianna Fáil and Green TDs yesterday voted their full confidence in Minister O’Dea. Today the Green Party reflected on their public humiliation and had to demand the Minister’s head if they were to stay in Government. In response the Taoiseach had to seek Minister O’Dea’s resignation.

“This dysfunctional and totally discredited Government should follow Willie O’Dea out of office. Fianna Fáil, having devastated the Irish economy with their disastrous policies and mismanagement over the past 12 years are now, with the Greens, trying to force ordinary people to pay the price.

“In the past six months they have lost a Ceann Comhairle and now a Minister for Defence but these two lay-offs pale into insignificance when compared to the figure of over 436,000 people who are unemployed as a result of Fianna Fáil/Green misrule. This Government should go.”

Ireland’s governing coalition lost its second minister in a week on Tuesday after a politician admitted that he illegally interfered in a criminal assault case involving one of his voters: here.

Prime Minister Brian Cowen launched an emotional defence of his political reputation yesterday after being accused of economic treason over the multibillion-euro bailout of rogue lender Anglo Irish Bank: here.

Both parties in the Irish government are facing electoral disaster when they finally go to the polls. A general election is due by 2012 at the latest, but the coalition government of Fianna Fail and the Greens is unlikely to last that long. Recent opinion polls have suggested that Fianna Fail, the largest political party for the entire history of the Irish republic, will be reduced to third place in the Dáil Éireann, the Irish parliament, while the Greens will face near obliteration: here.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy paid a brief visit on February 25 to the Rwanda capital Kigali, to meet Rwandan president Paul Kagamé. This visit took place 15 years after the 1994 genocide of the Tutsis by Hutu tribal forces, supported by France, which claimed 800,000 victims: here.